| The internet of old was something better. Of course it was, it was full of techies, scientists and hobbyists having absurdly involved discussions on Usenet and IRC. That was before Eternal September and the rampant commercialisation, tracking and grabbing all the data possible as often as possible. The earliest years of commercialisation were pretty good too - hundreds of small sites, all trying really hard, but all with terrible site design. :) The worst that adtech could yet come up with was an ugly animated gif and a little flash - which was super easy to block. "Regulations like GDPR arguably make users complacent and lowers their guard" What guard? How does a non IT expert envisage the ways that harvested data impacts their lives? Or the countless ways it can be connected up with other sources until it becomes pervasive? How are they meant to know that the news article they read has 15 different trackers on it along with the ads, or the reason some creepy retargeting ad turns up later in the day as though it knew what they were thinking? Sometimes I wonder if _I_ know enough to take care adequately, and I've been online since before the www. Now add the dark patterns and misinformation to completely misrepresent what most of these sites are doing with that data. Some of the big names excel at this. "why change things?" Facebook, Google, Microsoft and a hundred others got so greedy about data and tracking that the overreach was impossible to ignore. If GDPR wasn't already in progress, Cambridge Analytica and similar stories would have ensured it would get a reaction soon. Probably a worse reaction. |
Yeah, people use to complain, loudly, about sites that allowed animated gif banner ads.